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suicide bombing

On 28th December, A suicide bomber managed to kill 45 mourners as they marched in a procession in Karachi. The blast also wounded up to 60 more people, who were commemorating Ashura, the holiest day on the Shia religious calendar.

While no group has claimed responsibly for the incident yet but it’s obvious that the horrendous explosion on Shia procession was the contribution of our very own Sunni extremist alliance comprised by Lashkar e Jhangi and Taleban linked Jesh e Mohammad, the same Jesh-e-Mohammad that was formed by Molana Masood Azhar, the man released after a deal between Taliban and Indian authorities after the Indian Airline hijacked in Afghanistan.

These organizations are quite active in Karachi and despite being banned they are aggressively engaged in inciting sectarianism.

The Lashkar e Jhangvi & Jesh e Mohammad draw support, inspiration and assistance from various religious-political parties in Pakistan, primarily the Pro Taleban Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) who has a soft corner for Taleban and Al Qaida.

Just last week, Karachi police told Daily Times that they had intelligence that indicated Lashkar-e-Jhangvi would strike at the Shia processions in Karachi.

“They plan to carry out suicide bombings and target killings,” an anonymous police official told Daily Time last week. “These terrorists want to show their strength to the law enforcers and intelligence agencies, and they also want to take revenge of the killings of their leaders and workers in the last couple of months in the city.”

Right after the bomb blast at least 80 percent shops were torched by the extremist elements of Shia community as a reaction. It has been estimated that 2000(Rs. 30 billion loss) shops were set ablaze, which is hugely detrimental to the country’s economy.

Now the question arises how within seconds mobs torched the markets and no one could stop them. While the law and enforcement agencies were engaged in protecting rest of the procession that remained continued even after the blast, the extremist elements of Shia community (who vowed to react if incase of any terrorism during the procession) had loaded themselves with inflammable material that could blaze markets within minutes and did the job accordingly. It may be mentioned here that Iran has been accused of sponsoring Shia militancy (ISO) in Pakistan.

So far MQM is the only political party that has been directly accusing Taliban for every major terrorist attack that has taken place in the country in the last five years however the PPP, PML N and ANP have turned a blind eye towards this issue.

Other than them Jamat e Islami and PTI of Imran Khan support negotiations with Taleban which seems an attempt to curb on going military operation against Taliban, to reunite them and to carry their agenda in more effective way since Pakistan’s tribal area is the strong hold of Jamat e Islami.

The only solution to this problem is strict vigilance on the mainstream as well as underground religious parties of Pakistan whose leaders are freely roaming and preaching hate speech against different sects in Pakistan and gradually earning public support.

I finally had a chance to watch “The Kingdom”: One of the interesting movies I had been planning to watch for quite sometime. Kingdom’s story opens up with the terrorist attack at Western residential compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia claims many innocent lives. Terrorists in the movie are portrayed as misguided Al Qaeda Muslims who in the name of Allah used to target foreigners (mainly Americans) through gun shots and suicide bombings. While diplomats slowly debate equations of territorialism, FBI Special Agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx) quickly assembles an elite team (Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman) and negotiates a secret five-day trip into Saudi Arabia to locate the mastermind behind the bombing. Upon landing into the modern yet traditional Riyadh the FBI team find Saudi Authorities suspicious and unwelcoming of the investigative agency as they called it a local matter however crew finds a like-minded partner in Saudi Colonel Al-Ghazi (Ashraf Barhoum), who helps them navigate royal politics and unlock the secrets of the crime scene.

In the end with these unlikely allies sharing a firm commitment to crack the case, the team is led to the killer’s front door.

On many occasions I tried to correlate this movie with the current situation of Pakistan where in the name of God terrorists carry out suicidal attacks that claim numerous innocent lives on almost daily basis but on ground unlike the movie no proper investigation takes place since Pakistani authorities are simply not determined to catch the big fish who high handedly roam around in our cities, the culture of joint investigation is also missing as our Govt has a rich history of raising and funding Jihadis. Followed by the recent wave of terrorism not even a single Madrassah or mosque has been raided where clerics openly incite masses with hateful sermons. This shows our commitment towards eradication of terrorism.

Earlier a particular situation led me into a deep shock when through a neo Mullah I got to know that the suicidal attack in Islamic University could be justified in a sense since exact Islamic teachings were not followed in that co education Islamic University of Islamabad which was funded by the US of A.

The nation where religious extremism running into its veins and the advocates of mass murderers being regarded as pious Muslims cannot prosper until it unanimously disowns black sheep within itself.

There has been a lot of talk about the Taliban who publicly whipped a teenage girl in a medieval fashion on the charge of her being involved in “illicit” relations. .According to the video running on Youtube and on our local media these days, the girl wearing red dress was forced upside down on the floor and was seen harshly whipped on the hip by 3 bearded Taleban. Local people said that this 17 year married woman was punished for illicit relations and this incident had taken place six months ago in Kabal area.

This controversial video has lately made us realize how violently the so called Shariah in the name of Nizame Adl [Law of Justice] is exercised in the most beautiful part of Pakistan. The place which was once known as heaven for the world has now turned into a hell. Those illiterate jihadi-mullahs and the so called custodians of Islam have been penetrating into rest of the parts of Pakistan to force their version of Shariah which could be more devastating in future.

On the other hand a common Pakistani is simply stunned and still trying to figure out what kind of Islam it is and more importantly why nobody’s stopping them. The Talebani Islam which lacks tolerance and peace has been rapidly growing and maligning the religion on all levels it is also giving room- to- criticize to those people who already have issues with Islam.

Islam never allows to brutally whip or stone someone in the name of Shariah, there are prerequisites of Shariah which need to be followed before penalizing someone. I wonder why this inhumane Talebani way of Islam is not being exercised in the countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan etc though I don’t agree with their laws yet in our part of the world they have touched the height of barbarianism.

Fortunately we the third generation of Pakistan are well aware of our shining past, the moderate nature of Pakistanis and rich culture but have we even thought what we are sowing for our future generations, what would they experience ? For the sake of saving future of Pakistan we the people of Pakistan must come forward and reject the theory of Taleban at least from our areas by keeping a strict check on what’s happening around, through Madarsah reforms and suspicious religious activities. We must not let Taleban state-of- mind grow and this can only be happened when we collectively discourage this sick mentality on all levels. Today they are in Swat tomorrow they will be in Karachi. We have already started receiving signals in our metropolis sometimes through graffiti and sometimes through strange phone calls.

Our law & enforcement agencies should take immediate notice to the atrocious activities in those areas and tackle them with force. Now things have gone beyond dialogue process.

Its high time to take up this matter seriously and stop the prevailing Nizam e Jadal [ Law of War] in those areas otherwise “friends of Pakistan” would come and resolve this issue by their DRONIC means which might end up on mass disaster.//